Like its older brother Ocean’s 11, Ocean’s 8 opens with a parole hearing. Sandra Bullock’s Debbie Ocean, a sibling to Clooney, is asked what she’s planning to do on the outside. Cue the knowing look and the game is afoot. This entry to the breezy Ocean’s series has flown in under the radar of RUINED FOREVER faux-outrage fans, possibly because the trilogy of the late 90s-early 00s never had that kind of devoted nerd following, possibly because the too-cool-for-school affect of Clooney, Pitt and the rest of the eleven were too confident and comfortable in their own skins for a certain kind of viewer to latch onto, internalise and toxify. Freed from the burden of fandom expectations and political sandbags, Ocean’s 11 delivers pretty much the same thing as it’s histaff counterpart: beautiful movie stars hanging out and quipping in a beautiful location, the kind of no-fuss, no muss mid-range movie we could do with more of.

In Céline Sciamma’s wonderful film Girlhood, there is a scene where a group of young girls, cosied up in a hotel room in the city which they paid for with ill-gotten money, lip-sync along to Rihanna’s “Diamonds”. Hidden away, briefly, from the world and everything that it sees them as and sees that they will be, they’re free to just enjoy themselves, their joy pumping powerfully through the screen as they sing along, a literal “vision of ecstasy”. I bring this up because The Emoji Movie also uses Diamonds. The Hi-5 Emoji, Gene the Meh Emoji and Jailbreak (who is secretly the Princess Emoji, apologies for the spoiler) read a deleted e-mail draft from the boy whose phone they live in to the girl that he likes, in which he quotes the song’s lyrics and tells her “I just think you’re so cool”. It was unclear if this embarrassing e-mail was supposed to be a joke or sincere, or it would have been if it hadn’t been obvious for some time by that point that there is no sincerity to be found here. The scene in Girlhood is genuine, vibrant and current in exactly all the ways that the scene in The Emoji Movie isn’t. Watch that instead. Watch anything instead. Maybe take your kids to the library. This film wouldn’t agree, it’s stance on words being that they are ‘lame’ and though everything you need to know about reviewing The Emoji Movie can be summed up with 💩, for thoroughness’ sake let’s proceed with the out-dated concept of words regardless.